


Wasp: Part 1 Stairway

by Tiberia1313



Series: Wasp [1]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ethical Dilemmas, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29508759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiberia1313/pseuds/Tiberia1313
Summary: Lilith, a reclusive monstrous cape, is visiting a museum with her only friend when a pair of villains attack, displaying little regard for human life. The local Hero team is busy fighting elsewhere in the city, and Lilith is the only one who can save the lives of many. To save them, and the life of her only friend, she will have to overcome her own self-loathing, and recognize the moral duty she has.
Series: Wasp [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2167671
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	Wasp: Part 1 Stairway

**Author's Note:**

> This is the start of a serialized adaptation of a Weaverdice campaign I and a friend have been playing for more than half a year. I am excited to introduce the many characters we have come up with together, and present our take on Wildblow's deeply engaging setting.  
> This part itself is original writing by me to act as a lead in before getting to the point where the game started. Feedback welcome.

_ “If Heaven is a comfortable paradise as is often imagined, then why must its natives say to us ‘Be not afraid’? Will these same words be the greeting given to us at the pearly gates? What will come of us in such a heaven? Will we greet our descendants with such words? What a terror Heaven must be. What a horror to behold.” _

—Laplace’s Angel

It was a warm spring day in Arkham, and the local heroes were in a fight.

Hastur threw a golden sphere through another figment of himself. It cracked apart into shards of light, like all the rest. He let out a sigh. The copies had his aura of fear, even if it was a weakened version of it. It was a strain on his will to attack it. His yellow robes flashed as he turned upon the maddening sound of roller blades on concrete.

“Hastur! Hastur! Hastur!” Phantasmagoria cried out with a laugh. He glid along the park walk with ease, leaping a fallen trash can with a spin and flourish. His black velvet coat flared out, as he spun. He snapped his fingers upon landing.. A Glittering dart zinged out from his hand.

Hastur threw a gold orb up into its path. The dart whipped around it, and through him. A prismatic figment of himself projected out and began to attack him. Hastur’s own spheres fended off the attacks. Each was weaker than his own would be, but retaliating took mental effort, and this was the third copy of himself he had had to fight.

He shrunk one of his orbs down, and as his other two fended off his counterparts’, he re-expanded the first between them, giving him room to think and recenter himself.

Dunwich wrestled his figment to the ground as it reached for his face. He pounded it down until cracks began to form. His grip slipped. The phantasm lunged. He rolled away. A bat dropped by a softball team that had fled was within reach. The grip was hard in his hand as he took it up and swung it in a wide arc around him, connecting with the figment, shattering it. He kept a hold of the weapon. It was primitive, and not his style, but it was effective in this case. 

He could see Hastur fighting yet another doppelganger. They darted through the trees, gold orbs clanging against one another. The phantasmal orbs began to crack upon the real, but the pounding continued. He spoke into his comm, “Hastur, I’m coming to help. I just finished my last one.”

“No.” Hastur replied, strain clear in his usually stoic voice. “Get to Phantasmagoria. Take him out. It's the only way to end this.”

Dunwich cursed and looked for the ostentatious roller blading mercenary. Phantasmagoria was speeding along the concrete walkways of the park. He kept on the move, always just out of reach.

Lavinia was on a playground throwing the last couple punches into her own figment. Dunwich saw a thick copse of trees beyond her, and beyond it was where Phantasmagoria was headed.

“Lavinia,” Dunwich said over the comm, “Tag me as I pass. I’ll go through the woods, you distract him.”

Lavinia looked over her shoulder at the woods and understood, nodding in agreement.

The two teammates passed one another. Lavinia brushed her hand along Dunwich, and he felt alacrity fill him. His pace quickened, and his steps were more sure. He rivaled an olympic sprinter as he made for the woods, bat in hand.

Lavinia ran for Hastur, surmising that would be the easiest way to get the mercenary’s attention. Her guess was right. A glittering dart struck her, but she timed a heel turn perfectly, throwing a kick through the figments head as it projected behind her. She looked at Phantasmagoria in time to see the surprised look on his domino masked face. They always underestimated her just because she had no offensive abilities of her own on the wiki.

Dunwich leapt over the underbrush, and juked around trees with ease. Through the copse he could see Phantasmagoria gliding along the path that made his movements as predictable as they were fast. 

He neared the edge of the woods when Phantasmagoria looked right at him, and snapped his fingers. Dunwich dove behind a tree, knowing that the darts could only turn so fast, but the dart did not come around and try to hit him. It struck the tree and a phantasm of it projected out on top of Dunwich. He screamed as his limbs got bound up in it and sharp edged light cut into him. He struggled but could get no leverage.

Phantasmagoria laughed and skated on.

Elsewhere people went about their day. 

The Arkham Cultural Preservation Museum stood proud in the heart of Arkham. It’s storied halls were full to bursting with artifacts from around the world, gathered nearly a century before by an eccentric philanthropist who sought to catalog knowledge on every culture in the world, to make Arkham into the global center of pan-human culture.

Sam dragged Lilith through the wings and exhibits, talking with passion about the many cultures represented by the many artifacts.

Lilith’s body was a few days past expiration. It was relatively fresh, but now and then a bit of pink foam, stained by decaying blood, would appear at the edges of her mouth and nose. She wiped it away on the sleeve of her filthy hoody. As she passed a few people commented on the overbearing smell. It wasn’t the smell of rot, but the smell of the body spray she had bathed herself in to mask the rot.

Despite the overwhelming anxiety she felt, Lilith was enjoying herself. Her only friend’s excitement was infectious. Their smile was bright, and they never treated Lilith as anything but another person, another girl. Despite the bloody foam, and the creeping patches of green, she almost felt like a normal girl, just out spending time with a friend. 

What held her back was the perspective of hundreds of other eyes, all looking at darkness as she hid most of herself beneath the hoody. Hundreds of tiny wasp like insects, small enough to crawl into an ear, clung to the corpse. One of them was inside it, clamped onto the brainstem and puppeting it.

“Hey, you’re doing it again.” Sam teased.

“What?” Lilith rasped through the corpse. She wasn’t sure what its former occupant had been called.

“You’re dissociating. Stay with me.”

Lilith thought to say something smart, but held her numbing tongue. She looked at Sam’s smiling face, and tried to match it. She laughed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, be yourself. Come on, the Egyptian wing is this way.” Sam hooked an arm around Lilith's and pulled her along. “Think you could get a mummy to walk out of here?”

Lilith laughed and shook her head. “Maybe if we soaked them in water for an hour.”

Sam laughed in return. Their phone buzzed as they received a text. Their brow furrowed as they read it. “The Miskatonics are fighting some guy called Phantasmagoria in the park.”

Down below in the atrium came the sound of the local news anchor presenting an emergency bulletin as docents changed TVs to the local news in case there was information people needed to know. Lilith and Sam headed down the stairs.

“Minutes ago a villain-for-hire named Phantasmagoria attacked Arkham Central Park, creating holographic duplicates of people that attacked their originals. Peace officers evacuated the area, and occupied the parahuman long enough for our local hero team, the Miskatoniks, to arrive. They are at this moment locked in battle with the villain, and at this time we cannot say what the outcome will be.”

The crowd murmured amongst themselves. A few prayers were spoken. Some separated from the crowd to call loved ones to be certain they were at home. The news had not mentioned any injuries or fatalities, but they always waited until everything was over to make such announcements, to preserve some illusion that all was well. The Heroes were here. The day was already saved.

Lilith watched the live feed from the news helicopter. The Miskatonics were having a difficult time. Each fought a copy of themself, and every time a figment fell, another took its place. They were getting worn down. Lilith swallowed.

“Lilith,” Sam whispered, “They might need you.”

Lilith shook her head. “They don’t need me.” Adding under her breath, “No-one does.”

Sam began to protest, but held back. Lilith’s attention was locked on the screen, muttering as they analyzed and thought through all she saw. Sam bided their time. They knew their friend had the heart to be a hero. The urge was in her eyes. They just needed to wait for something to push her over the edge, to push her to action.

“Look” Lilith pointed at the screen. Lavinia had just tagged Dunwich and now ran to Hastur as Dunwich made for the woods. “This could do it. He just needs to touch Phantasmagoria once.”

People overheard her and caught on to what was happening. The Atrium fell silent as Dunwich hit the woods. The moments stretched on. Phantasmagoria shot a glittering dart at the woods. People began to mutter.

Lilith backed up out of the crowd.

“Lilith, what is it?” Sam asked in as quiet a whisper as she could.

“Trees are organic.” Lilith explained. “A figment of it might have formed around him. He might be trapped.”

Sam swallowed hard. “I’ll drive.”

Lilith froze up.

“Lilith…” Same pressed. They didn’t need to say anything else.

People were murmuring as Dunwich failed to materialize out of the woods. Lilith opened her mouth to say something.

“Ladies, and gentleman!” All eyes looked up the grand staircase to where a man in char blackened armor stood. His costume looked cobbled together from scraps in a junkyard, with dents to attest to its effectiveness. He wore an asbestos hood over his head, with welding goggles hiding his eyes. “My name is Junkyard Inferno, and I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen.” He put his hands together, and then pulled them apart, spreading his fingers as he mouthed the sound effect of an explosion.

People ran for the exit. Sam moved to join them, but Lilith held them back. A loud bang split the scene, and a red mist filled the air in front of the doorway. Blood splattered across marble arches, and spread across quartz tiles. People screamed and fell back from the door, slipping on the fast spreading pool of blood.

Junkyard Inferno continued, “This is my associate, Angel’s Red.”

Angel’s red stood in the middle of the carnage. Bodies were pinned to the wall behind him by metal lances that had shot up from the floor. The spikes in front of him held more bodies, not all of them dead. Angel’s Red stepped out from his ring of metal thorns with a grin. His teeth shined like steel, and appeared to be in motion.

“I’ve got a cell jammer going, so don’t even bother trying to call for help.” Junkyard Inferno patted a blinking box on his hip. “He has some work to do for me, while I watch all of you. Red, go ahead and pass out my presents.”

Angel’s Red nodded. He pulled a box from a backpack he wore, and threw the package down after checking which way it faced. With a bang he appeared in another spot in another ring of lances. He bent down to place another package, checking with care that it was set right. Then another bang, and he repeated as before. Package by package he was building a ring around the hostages, corralling them in, skewering those who hadn’t backed up enough. A teenage boy gurgled and fell back at the feet of the grand stairs as one of these poor souls. Angel’s Red stared down at the boy and laughed as he died.

Sam held Lilith tight, but Lilith pushed them back into the crowd, whispering “It’s going to be alright.” 

Sam nodded, holding back tears of terror.

Lilith ran from the crowd as fast as she could the moment Angel’s red had made his latest teleport. She counted the seconds.

1…

2…

3…

She got to seven seconds before she cried out in agony as she was slammed against the marble wall, and pinned there by the steel lances run through her body. She could hear Sam crying and then stifling themself. The pain was immense. She let go of the body, slipping out its ear. The body went limp. She waited within its hoody as she thought through her next step.

Seven seconds. He could only teleport every seven seconds. She flew out a single wasp and made for his ear, to check on a hunch. She peered inside and learned another fact; He was a dimension of flowing metal. The ear canal ended with a torrent of flashing spikes. Anything entering him would be skewered. The lances that appeared when he did were not generated from nothing, they were from within him.

Junkyard Inferno raised his voice, “Anyone else care to try? Didn’t think so. Leave heroics to the heroes, and you’ll live longer.”

Angel’s Red finished the ring around the hostages.

“Now, if even one of you acts up, I blow you all to kingdom come. Kneel, and watch the floor. Just sit tight, and wait.” Junkyard Inferno ordered. “Red, get to work.”

Angel’s red disappeared as a corresponding bang echoed from above where he stood by a banister looking down into the Atrium. Seven seconds later there was another bang, deeper within. Lilith watched with her single pair of eyes, and made a mental note.

Lilith skittered the rest of herself out of the hoodie, careful not to attract attention. A single insect was impossible to spot, a whole swarm could catch notice. The clock ticked as she moved. She began to fly along the ceiling, and then down behind Junkyard Inferno, counting on his thick hood to deafen him to the buzzing. She landed on him, and began to search for a way into his body, but the fibrous hood was too thick, and too tight to get around. The heavy armor protected him better than he realized.

Junkyard Inferno leaned his head to the side and spoke softly into a radio. “Red, don’t forget to leave the ‘good’ european exhibits unbombed… How am I supposed to know what those lunatics think is good? Just make a good guess or we don’t get the bonus pay.”

There were over fifty exhibits, less by whatever counted as good to Red. If each one only took seven seconds she only had four to six minutes to act, and to disable the explosives Junkyard Inferno had primed. He held the detonator for the ring around the hostages in his hand. It was a simple black box with a blinking LED, a safety cover and a single button; It was brutal in its simplicity. He held it with a confident ease at his side while his eyes watched the hostages for any moves. They knelt down, and kept their heads down, just as he told them to

Tiny silver wasps crawled down his arm, converging on the back of the remote. Lilith began to chew through the plastic with mandibles capable of burrowing through six inches of bone and meat in an eyeblink. Lilith watched the bomber with a dozen eyes while she ate through with haste. 

It took a minute to chew open a big enough hole to crawl inside. She searched through the internals for the battery, feeling the seconds tick by. Identifying the wires to cut didn’t take long, the remote was simple so that less could go wrong with it. Lilith began to bite through the wire, but stopped. The blinking light would go out. He’d only need to glance at it to see something had gone wrong and switch to whatever back up he’d have if he was half as smart as he thought. Almost as bad, he’d tell Angel’s Red. 

She would have to take out Junkyard Inferno’s communications before he even realized he was under attack, then finish that fight before he could get the secondary detonator out. She couldn’t even find the secondary detonator. It was probably in one of the steel lined cases on his belt, where she couldn’t get in time. That left one option; She would have to kill him, sever his brainstem, puppet his corpse. A corpse of her own making.

A pang of guilt hit her for thinking she was the right person to do anything, for thinking someone, something, like her could help. A hero was needed, not a horror. But the heroes were elsewhere, while she was here. She and Sam. Lilith then looked for her only friend.

Sam was in the crowd telling people it would all be alright. Lilith knew Sam meant it, believed it even. It wasn’t true, but Lilith wanted it to be true. Right person or not, she was the one there. There was a moral duty to help, and it was hard to deny that she had a greater duty to aid the people trapped in a ring of death, than to the men who had put them there. She would do what she could. It was all she could do, all anyone could do.

The first hint Junkyard Inferno got that something was wrong was the sudden slackness in his radio’s cable. It had been severed. He looked around for the culprit and held the remote high. “Show yourself, or I blow them all!” he began to shout, but most of it was muffled by the swarm of tiny silver wasps that covered his eyes and mouth, kept out only by the hood and goggles, but still they were enough to muffle and blind him. He pressed the button, but nothing happened. He went for his back up remote. This had to be a hero. He’d show them his threats weren’t idle. Not like he could get a second kill order.

Lilith kept blinding and muffling the bomber while she did all she could to hinder his attempts to reach the backup remote. Dozens of mandibles clung to the plastic safety cover while more wasps bit onto them and formed chains of insects holding the cover closed with their collective strength. Unable to see, Junkyard struggled to figure out what impeded him, slowing his ability to dislodge her. She chewed through the antenna and formed a faraday cage around it, praying that her silver sheen was something metallic. At the same time she was rushing to finish the fight. Dozens of wasps ate through the straps of the welding goggles. They were thick leather. She had begun eating through them before the fight began, giving herself as much of a head start as she could. It wasn’t going to be enough. He was getting over his own initial shock, and getting over the lizard brain fear of stinging insects. She had to find another way to delay. There was one.

Junkyard Inferno yelled in frustration and finally wiped the pests away from his detonator. He held the safety cover open, but his hand was pulled back from the detonator, and the cover put back down. It was a human hand. Some fool was getting brave. He threw them off, but they stayed on him. His goggles fell away, clearing his sight of the wasps. A teenage boy with a thumb sized hole in his neck stood there. Junkyard Inferno didn’t have time to question this before a wasp wriggled and ate its way past his eye, burrowing deeper and deeper to his brainstem. He was severed from his body.

It had been too close. She looked over the hostages. Some of them were watching, risking death to see what the muffled struggle was about. They stared in silent awe, too scared and confused to speak. The boy and Junkyard Inferno ran deeper into the museum, following the sound of banging.

A quick search of Junkyard’s pouches revealed an array of explosives; Minigrenades, time bombs, fire bombs, smoke bombs, devices of unknown ability, but she could guess at them. She took a mini-grenade in each hand, pulling their pins, a plan already forming.

Lilith waited where she expected Angel’s Red would next appear, following his path by their sound and a memory of the visits Sam had brought her on. He appeared with a bang. He began to set up a small explosive device in the middle of the Egyptian exhibit. Lilith ran at him with the teenage body first. Red saw him coming and broke off a metal lance, impaling her just as she reached him. The bodies of Junkyard and the boy both cried out in pain, and surprise.

Angel’s Red turned to see his former partner sneaking up on him, flinching from the pain of the boy. He didn’t understand, but he understood enough. He leveraged the lance in his hand to fling the boy back at Junkyard. One of the mini grenades fell from his hand in the impact. Some of Lilith fell upon Angels’ Red as he teleported away. 

She threw herself atop the grenade. Junkyard’s body leapt into the air and fell with wet thud. She had already left it, to spare herself the pain. The other grenade was held in the boy’s hand, and she knew right where Red had teleported to, a few wasps clinging to his clothes. She threw the grenade. Angel’s Red ran, but screamed as his face got stun over and over again. He stumbled, and the grenade went off.

Lilith ran after him, pulling the metal lance out of her body, and ramming it into Red’s with all the boy’s strength.

Red coughed up blood, and spat it into her face. There was a bang behind her. She screamed, and let go of the body. Red lay on the ground behind the now limp body, ringed by the lances released from within himself.

Lilith knew only one way to end it. She had never seen him teleport around a blind corner. She fell upon him once more. He screamed and the world went dark. He clutched at his shredded eyes and rolled about, wailing for revenge.

“The Miskatonics ultimately proved victorious in their fight against Phantasmagoria. The local team has promised to help repair the damage they had done to the park out of necessity. Doctors report Dunwich’s injuries are minor, and he should be back to active fighting shape within a couple days. All of us in Arkham can sleep easy knowing such guardians watch over us. In other news, there was a simultaneous attack today at the Arkham Cultural Museum. A pair of villains, Angel’s Red, and Junkyard Inferno, took the museum guests hostage and were planting bombs around the museum with what seems to be the intent of destroying the whole museum. Their scheme was thwarted however. How exactly remains a mystery, but it seems that local highschool student Cedrick McGoy may have triggered after being fatally wounded, and was able to fight on past the point of death thanks to unknown parahuman abilities. Witnesses report seeing him pull himself off a metal spike generated by Angel’s Red, and assaulting Junkyard Inferno. Other witnesses report that after a brief struggle, Cedrick and Junkyard both went to the second level to confront Angel’s Red. The exact nature of Cedrick’s abilities will forever remain a mystery, but his memory… will live on. Junkyard Inferno was found dead on the scene, and Angel’s Red was found to be severely injured, including the loss of his eyes. He is expected to be sent to the birdcage. Authorities are investigating the possibility that there is some connection between the two attacks. Now, sports!”

Sam lay curled up in bed. They read late into the night, too unnerved to sleep. They had come so close to death, and seen so many people die. Whatever nightmares waited for them, they refused to go to them. The ceiling above them was covered in a blanket of silvery wasps. The sight comforted them, calmed them. “Thank you. Again.”

Lilith shifted about forming words, then stopped and shifted about to form others, and then stopped again as she tried to figure out how to reply, unsure how to arrange herself to say it.

Sam chuckled. “It’s fine. You’re a hero, Lilith. You saved a lot of people today. You don’t need to keep hiding.”

Lilith stilled, then formed the words ‘Thank you’

Sam nodded. They looked at the clock. 2 AM. “Can you stay here while I sleep? Today was— Please stay.”

‘I’ll stay’ Lilith replied. Outside she was feeding on garbage, but she could keep a portion of herself here throughout the night to watch over her friend. It was the first time she didn’t resent not needing to sleep. ‘Goodnight, Sam.’

“Goodnight, Lilith.” Sam closed Their eyes, and kept Lilith in their mind as the dreams came.


End file.
